Wild elephant rampage drives Laljhadi locals from homes

KATHMANDU: Thagi Kadara and his family – a resident of Laljhadi Rural Municipality-4, Khallajai was compelled to take shelter at neighbour’s home for the past one week after a herd of wild elephants broke down his house.

The rampaging tuskers also ate up grains stored inside his house. The Kadara family was forced to take a shelter at a neighbour’s house with remaining grains and clothes.

“We usually visit our house in the afternoon”, he said, adding, “Everyday we go to the neighbour’s house before the evening to take shelter”.

Kadara family has abandoned staying at the home since a week back, fearing that the herd of elephants will come again and create havoc. “The elephant almost took our life, fortunately we escaped the tragic incident and survived”, Thagi’s wife said.

She narrated, “We came to know the rampage of the tuskers when they started demolishing the house wall in the midnight. The entire house was fearfully shaken. We ran away carrying my ailing husband who had recently undergone abdominal surgery”.

The herd of tuskers had eaten up eight sacks of paddy kept inside the house, she said, adding the mammoths also made the utensils useless.

Like the Kadara family, the houses of Harilal Tamta and Raj Tamta, who take shelter in their neighbour’s home, have also been destroyed by elephants.

The elephants ate the grain inside the house of both Tamta families. All three families who were rendered homeless after demolition are living in a worried state.

Raj Tamta said that the elephant rampage forced them to ask for food from others every day.

Chief of Laljhadi Sub-Division Forest Office, Karunakar Joshi said seven employees of the office, who had been working for a month after leaving the forest conservation work, had to join hands with local residents to chase away the rampaging tuskers.

“The elephants have destroyed sugarcane farming in ward no. 4”, he shared. Besides creating public awareness to protect the general public from elephants, arrangement of lights on the roads, sirens and honking of tractors have also been carried out to prevent further human loss, he added.

According to him, the number of elephants including cubs in the nearby forests has reached 24.